Meghan McCain, the former co-host of “The View,” the podcast host, made the headline when he recently posted to social media to support “detox” supplements filmed after receiving or infection for Covid-19.
The “detox” supplement McCain has an advertising cost of $89.99, one of several versions sold online. It claims its ability to “degrade spike proteins and destroy their function,” and “provides the body with unparalleled support for cellular defense and detoxification.”
Vaccine experts say such claims are nonsense.
“We’ve seen a lot of people who have had a lot of trouble with their health,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist in vaccine and infectious disease tissue at the University of Saskatchewan. “They are non-toxic and not harmful.”
McCain’s X post about supplements has been removed, but McCain’s personalized discount codes continued to work on the supplement maker Wellness Company website. Neither McCain’s representative nor the wellness company responded to requests for comment.
McCain also posted about “data on data” about the mRNA vaccine this week, saying that his friend experienced health problems after receiving a shot of Covid-19. As part of the post, she shared a video suggesting that vaccine materials can stick to the long term and can change a person’s genome.
Vaccine experts say it’s just not true.
The messenger RNA of the Covid-19 vaccine tells the cells in the body to create a specific part of the viral spike protein, that is, the surface structure of the coronavirus. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said mRNA vaccines are like the blueprints used to train the immune system to train the immune system.
“The mRNA is just there right away,” Schaffner said. “Spike proteins are metabolized. They are divided very quickly by our own body. So we are not in a position to distribute throughout the body that needs to require some kind of “detoxification.”
“It’s not just a scientifically valid concept.”
Because mRNA is so short-lived, vaccine makers will make modifications that allow them to stick slightly longer than otherwise, Rasmussen said.
“But mRNAs, even modified mRNAs like these vaccines, will not stay around forever,” Rasmussen said. “It’s not a very stable molecule yet.”
Rasmussen also said that some believe mRNA is used to put into the prolonged cells and are toxic. Lipid nanoparticles, Rasmussen, said, “Don’t stick again forever.” She said it would break at about the same speed as mRNA does.
Schaffner believes that some scientists may be using it to explain how mRNA vaccines work is useless.
“The name of the protein is, is this ‘spike protein’ making people feel uneasy?” Schaffner said. If scientists call it something like a “key protein” – it’s like a key entering a cell’s lock, allowing the protein to “and do its good job” – “may not have sparked that much anxiety,” suggested Schaffner.
Rasmussen believes people still mislead science, particularly with Trump administration leaders who have a history of undermining vaccine safety or promoting suspicious supplements.
“A lot of this isn’t misinformation. It’s really disinformation because the people who started this know what they’re doing,” Rasmussen said.
Dr. Peter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says the availability of vaccine “detox” products speaks to a major problem with the way the US manages dietary supplements.
Unlike medicines that are tested and approved before they go to the market and must then comply with strict regulations on how they are sold, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are sold. Fear or mistrust of a Covid-19 vaccine is a simple target for supplement manufacturers, Cohen said.
“This is the perfect scenario for supplements to jump into rescue,” Cohen said. “You have a solution that can make false health concerns and then settle with supplements. It’s a great opportunity for supplement manufacturers to make money.
He said it’s difficult to define what “detoxification” means from a Covid-19 vaccine.
“Are you trying to wash away the immunity-boosting effects against Covid? Is that the goal? I think it’s a very vague and moving target,” Cohen said. “Or there’s a fear that the Covid vaccine will cause more harm than government permits. The idea is to sell these supplements to prevent the harm of that mystery.”
“I think that’s an approach full of health terror, according to fear,” Cohen added.
Experts say the vaccine is not perfect, but the risk of covid vaccines is very small, with issues like arm pain and low-grade fever that some patients have resolved quickly.
“It doesn’t help any supplement resolve faster,” Cohen said.
Research consistently shows that mRNA covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and that millions of people are getting them without serious incidents.
As of May, the FDA required COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BionTech and Moderna, and used an extended warning label with more information about the risk of rare heart disease after vaccination. Some studies have found that Covid-19 infection itself is at a higher risk of myocarditis or pericarditis than vaccination.
Schaffner said that if there was a real problem with any of the Covid vaccines, the country’s surveillance system would have now captured it. That’s what happened with the Johnson & Johnson Covid 19 vaccine: Surveillance has identified a rare risk of severe blood clotting syndrome, especially among some women. The vaccine is no longer in use.
“The system works,” Schaffner said.
“These mRNA vaccines are safe and they are seen in millions of patients.”
What could even be even more dangerous is the disinformation surrounding vaccines that people would like to adopt supplements to detoxify them in the first place.
“This is a much bigger problem,” Rasmussen said. “It’s important to slap this disinformation wherever you can. It’s morally wrong and blamed.”